What Are The Causes Of The Great Depression In America

The Great Depression was a period of long-term unemployment, hunger, and hardship. It was the worst economic collapse in industrialized society, lasting from 1929 to 1941. North America, Europe, and other industrialized countries all suffered from this severe depression, but it affected the United States the most. Some of the many effects of this catastrophic period were the unfathomable economic disparity between the rich and poor, the changing ideals of family and social life, and organizations and people of power attempting to make positive reforms to end the suffering and increasing unemployment rate. The distinct economic separation between the minority upper class and the lower classes gave rise to increasing hostility and conflicts between the classes. While 25% of the nation’s children were …show more content…
While the working class was out of jobs and struggling to make a living, the upper class went about flaunting their wealth. Additionally, the upper class began resenting what they believed to be unnecessary aid from the New Deal programs. According to them, the unemployment of the working class was of no fault but their own. The Great Depression altered the traditional conceptions of family life, and job competition led to an increase in discrimination. During this time of increasing unemployment, many men lost their jobs and were not capable of providing for their families. With the ideal providers of the family unemployed, women and children began looking for jobs. The men who lost their jobs felt ashamed and thought this switch in gender roles Figure 1 was degrading. Many families traded goods and labor instead of using money. Some even shared homes with two to three families. The very poor and destitute families who lost their homes lived in Hooverville, shanty-towns built the homeless and deliberately named to blame President